


a woman for the ages

by carryyourownbanner



Series: amino/tumblr requests [1]
Category: Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Canon Era, F/M, Post-Strike, amino requests, editing? who’s she, i was watching black panther as i wrote this so, shrug emoji
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-01
Updated: 2019-07-01
Packaged: 2020-06-02 10:14:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19439365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carryyourownbanner/pseuds/carryyourownbanner
Summary: jack wasn’t the only one who believed in katherine. in fact, specs has him beat.he never doubted her.





	a woman for the ages

It didn’t happen all of a sudden. 

Specs was never rash. He was willing to take risks, but only carefully calculated ones- and from the start, with Jack’s heart-eyes and Romeo’s attempts to woo her, she wasn’t a risk he was prepared to take. And certainly not when Jack was so evidently in love with her- surprisingly, it was impossible to tell at the time if it was another one of those fits of passion he got into or something genuine.

It turned out to be the latter- but it didn’t last long.

He remembered time and time again that it was he who’d showed Katherine to Jack’s rooftop hideaway and effectively threw the lit match onto the haystack; and the bonfire roared loud and bright for a few months. 

Thanks to Specs and a little bit of distance, they were on good terms. There wasn’t a week that went by when Katherine didn’t visit the newsies at Jacobi’s at least twice- she spent as much time with them as Race did south of the bridge- which is to say, a fair bit.

Thus, Specs had had the honor of knowing her for nearly a year now- it was June of 1900.

She was witty, but calm and collected. She was, by no means, careless. She had drive, she had ambition. Her philosophy of “nothing happens if you just give in” was admirable, to say the least, to Specs; that and how wonderfully attractive she became when she adopted the style of Amelia Bloomer- she looked even more stunning in a strange bohemian way.

Everything about her was as such, and every word she said was gospel- he didn’t know why, but he’d had faith in her from the beginning. When she came to them with her front-page _above the fold_ article, he fully expected that her efforts would’ve inspired dozens of other papers to pick up the story, maybe even all over the nation.

He didn’t see why she couldn’t do anything, but he realized that the world saw a pretty girl- solely a pretty girl, to be clear, because he saw that too, but there was far more to her than that. Perhaps he’d spent too much time with Romeo and Jack and Race- but he’s a poet because of it. It’s really ridiculous how long he could lay there and think about her voice alone.

Every time he hears it, it’s a process to remind himself to focus. Oftentimes she’ll read her articles aloud to the newsies- she and Jack may have not be a thing, but he was still in awe of her. All of them were. 

She’d make history by writing it.

“How ‘bout that?” a certain blonde says, leaning back in his chair and kicking his feet up on the table- from where they’re promptly shoved down by Davey- when Katherine finishes reading and explaining her project where they’ve met up in Jacobi’s. “Don’t wanna sound full a’ myself, but I wanna say we had somethin’ to do with it.”

Katherine raises an eyebrow. “Why?”

“‘Cause we was successful. People- like those women- saw that even kids can bring down a man like Pulitzer. So’s they form a union.”

“Could be,” Mush chimes in. “But even so, figure someone had to do it. We just happened to be the first.”

Specs shakes his head. “Much as I hate to say it, Racer has a point,” he says, jokingly, and gets swatted with the boy’s hat. “Really. You figure someone starts something and it goes around. ‘Cept we got our idea from the trolley workers and they got their idea from somewhere else. So I think we may have something to do with it, but definitely not all.”

Katherine smiles at him.

“Exactly. But I didn’t talk about that- but I guess I’m contributing to that cycle by spreading the word,” she says, blinking in realization. “Huh. I mean- if a man bites a dog, that’s news. You’ve never seen a workforce of women banding together like this...”

“I think it’s great,” Romeo quips. “Strong, independent women like yourself, I’m sure.”

Smalls rolls her eyes. “Keep it in your pants, de los Santos.”

“Just like us. Let’s hope there’s no need for ‘em to strike- but if they need to, they will, if they’re anything like you,” he goes on, ignoring her.

Specs shoves him lightly. “It’ll make a great story, Kath.”

“I’ve already convinced the higher ups to let me publish under a pseudonym- as in, K. Plumber. It’s a joke, but I get more publicity with that as opposed to Katherine- don’t even get me started, boys.”

“Joke’s on them,” he counters. “This century belongs to you, Katherine, I know it.”

And she smiles again, and his heart skips. Romeo eyes him sideways, and he’s sure he knows- but he finds that, right now, he doesn’t care.

Specs remains behind when the others leave- Katherine’s there, too, revising her article one final time, presumably, before she submits it.

Actual customers fill the tables, now, so Specs takes a seat across from Katherine. It takes her a moment to see him- ever focused on her work. She has little ticks, he notices after a moment- tapping the pencil silently against the table, pursing her lips as she reads intently and mouths the words.

“Don’t you have an evening edition to hawk?”

The way she says it is not accusing; it’s merely curious.

“Don’t you have an amazing article to submit?”

The corner of her mouth twitches into a smile. 

“In a bit. I need to make sure it’s perfect...”

“It already is. Everything else is the editor’s job.”

“I don’t need an editor.”

“What you need is a drink.”

She quirks a brow. “Jacobi’s familiar, I don’t need to buy anything to work in here-“

“Could you let me buy you something, at least?”

She bites her lip. “No. Just water’d be nice.”

So he orders her a glass of water. 

“Could you tell me more about the story?”

She doesn’t need to be asked twice.

He doesn’t know how long he sits there listening to her, but there isn’t a moment he worries about it- it gets darker outside but he knows he’ll have time to get to the lodging house, and he knows Romeo’ll cover for him monetarily- he may or may not have had a chat with him before he left.

“The strike fixed a thing or two, but there’s still so much more. All it’ll take is a bit of muckraking to get it in the eye of the public and with that in mind we just might change more in our lifetimes than anyone else has in the history of the world. For the first time in history it’s safe to drink water- it’s just amazing.”

“But we’ve still got a long way to go.”

“Of course,” she says. “Social rights issues- civil rights-“ she looks at him- “are still so far behind.”

He nods, looking around the deli. “No better place to be than New York City, though.”

She shrugs. “I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. There’s no better place to be yourself, though- as you said, we’ve got a long way to go.”

“I understand.”

“May I tell you a secret?”

“Shoot.”

She leans forward some, and the closeness has his heart pounding. “I have- in the past- found myself attracted to men and women. There’s no law against it for myself, but- others have spoken to me. Your newsies? Romeo is one of them.”

“Oh,” Specs says. “We know about him.”

“You do?”

“Course we do. We’d never say a thing about it to anyone, n’ that’s why we can be so honest with each other.”

She grins. “I’m glad you boys have something like that.”

“You’re one of us too, you know.”

“I do.”

“You’ve always been here for us-“

“Right back at you,” she says, closing her notebook. “Why did you show me up to Jack’s rooftop?”

It’s blunt and it takes him by surprise, but he finds himself answering easily. “Because you needed to talk to him. The rally was ugly... I knew you’d win it for us.”

She pauses. “Thank you. You’ve always been quick like that. I like it.”

When she gets up and leaves it’s with a wink and a hand on his shoulder, and it sends shivers down his spine and puts a smile on his face.

He’ll never get over her.

**Author's Note:**

> i’ve never written specs before so hopefully this doesn’t /entirely/ suck
> 
> for elmer (http://aminoapps.com/p/nj0096) on the newsies amino


End file.
